


Hiding

by CelesteFitzgerald



Series: YOI Ship Bingo [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12098016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelesteFitzgerald/pseuds/CelesteFitzgerald
Summary: After winning silver at Skate Canada, Phichit starts heading back to his hotel room—but he runs into Seung-gil crying under the stairs on the way.





	Hiding

Phichit arrived back at the hotel after winning silver at Skate Canada. He would have liked the gold, but he knew that Guang Hong deserved it. And silver still gave him a great chance of making it to the Grand Prix Final again this year.

He headed to the elevators, only to see a huge line. He pulled out his phone to take a selfie to pass the time, but when he’d finished and an elevator still hadn’t arrived, he decided to take the stairs. He was only on the third floor, anyway.

He opened the door to the stairwell and was about to start climbing when he saw a shadowed figure crouched in the corner under the stairs. Phichit gasped and stepped back, ready to head back to the elevators.

The person looked up, fear in their eyes.

“…Seung-gil?”

Seung-gil ignored Phichit and looked away.

“Seung-gil, what are you doing here?”

“No one ever takes the stairs,” he deadpanned.

“…So you decided to stay here for the night instead your room?” Phichit laughed nervously.

“I come here to get away.”

“Get away from what?” Phichit walked over and sat down next to him, but Seung-gil flinched away. Phihit got a better look at his face. “Have you been crying?”

Seung-gil just stared straight ahead.

Phichit wasn’t sure what to do. He gently patted Seung-gil’s knee. “If there’s anything I can do to help….” He trailed off, waiting for a response but receiving none. He sat with him for a couple more minutes, making a couple more attempts at talking before sighing and standing up. “I’m going to head up to my room, but you have my number if you want to talk about anything.” He stood up and walked to the stairs.

Seung-gil muttered something.

“What?”

“Stay.”

Phichit paused, then turned around and tentatively sat back down. “Are you sure you don’t want to move somewhere else? This floor isn’t very comfortable, and it’s a bit cold. Not to mention it looks mildly creepy to see someone hiding in the shadows by the stairs.”

“I feel safe here. No people, no expectations…no failures.”

Is that was this was about? Halfway through his free skate earlier, Seung-gil had fallen during his triple toe loop and seemed to have lost his focus for the rest of the program. But with his excellent short program score he still came in fourth overall. “Messing up that jump earlier today wasn’t that bad. Everyone does it. You still skated incredibly well.”

Seung-gil’s lips drew into a tight frown. “It was such an easy jump. And not everyone messes up.”

“Of course everyone does—”

“Not like me. When _you_ fall in a jump, you get right back up and complete the program just like you planned. When _I_ fall, all I can do is try to calculate how big of a deduction it is and if I had enough rotations for the base score.”

“But…don’t you do that anyway?” Phichit pretended not to notice a couple fresh tears rolling down Seung-gil’s cheeks.

“But I get so focused on calculating how many points I’ll lose that that all I can think about for the rest of the performance is ‘this is my score now, but _this_ is what my score would have been if I hadn’t messed up,’ and then I’m calculating two scores at once and constantly reminding myself of my failure and everything falls apart like it always does.”

Seung-gil’s voice had gotten louder and his breaths had gotten faster. Phichit moved so that Seung-gil was looking right into his eyes. “Hey, take deep breaths. It’s okay.”

Seung-gil turned his head away, but Phichit lightly pushed his chin so that their eyes met again. When he saw how wide Seung-gil’s eyes were, he pulled him into a hug. “I know you like figuring out your scores and that it’s important to you, and I’m not diminishing that, but regardless of how many points you got you did great out there. Your movements are always so graceful and strong, and you have the strength and skill to pull off jumps that no one else can. And everyone has off days—like Yuuri at the Final two years ago, and JJ last year. But no one doubts that they’re incredible skaters. Mistakes happen. And it’s okay to be upset about them, but don’t let it take over.”

Phichit felt Seung-gil’s body start to shake as he cried silently. Phichit soothingly rubbed his back.

After a minute, Seung-gil spoke up. “Why do you care?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you wasting your night here with me? You should be celebrating your medal.”

“I’m not wasting my night here!” He said immediately, finally pulling back from the hug. “You’re my friend and I care about you; I can’t just leave you here alone.”

Seung-gil’s face went cold. “I’m not your friend.”

Phichit tried not to be upset by this. “Of course you are. Why wouldn’t we be friends? We always talk to each other at competitions and like each other’s social media posts. And I like talking to you.”

Seung-gil looked down and started fidgeting with the seam of his pants. “You’d really want to be friends with _me_?”

“Yes!”

Phichit caught the hint of a smile on Seung-gil’s lips before he suppressed it. “I guess I could allow your friendship.”

Phichit smiled. “Good! …So, are you ready to get out from under these stairs now? Seriously, I was really creeped out earlier before I realized it was you.”

Seung-gil sighed. “Fine.” He stood up, then offered Phichit his hand.

Phichit took it and pulled himself up. “So, now what?”

“Sleep.”

“Okay…that’s one option…ooooor we could go hang out in my room and spam Guang Hong with congratulatory tweets so the notifications keep him up all night?”

“Then we wouldn’t sleep either.”

“Yeah, so?” Phichit bounced excitedly.

Seung-gil rolled his eyes—then gave a small smile. “Fine.”

“Yes!” Phichit pumped his fist in victory. “But first, we need a selfie.”

“Really? …At least wait until we’ve moved; the lighting is awful under these stairs.”

Phichit’s face lit up in a huge smile as he grabbed Seung-gil’s shoulders. “You actually care about the lighting? I’m so proud!” He pulled him into another hug.

Seung-gil smiled and slowly wrapped his arms around Phichit. Maybe this friendship wasn’t so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> My original plan was to end this fic with them getting together, but as I kept writing, with the direction the fic took me the romance felt like it would have been really forced, so I kept it as friendship. There is a slight chance I may continue this and possibly have them get together in another chapter or two, but for now I’ll just leave it as a one-shot.


End file.
